Grief grips neighborhood

By Ana Ley :
January 25, 2013
: Updated: January 26, 2013 1:36am

Cub Scout Pack 352 light candles in memory of their fallen friend and fellow cub scout, Brandon Abrams, during a vigil attended by over 100 mourners on the Northwest Side of the city on Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. The vigil was for the young boy who was killed after a driver of a truck collided with Abrams' bicycle in a neighborhood on Autumn Sunrise road. Stuffed toys, pictures and written words of condolences were tacked to a fence while candles flickered around a memorial. Around 6:30 p.m. mourners, young and old, converged on the site. Friends and family members spoke fondly of the boy who most said loved to smile. Cub Scout Pack 352 - which Abrams belonged - came out as a unit and lit candles in memory of their fallen comrade. Donations were dropped in a bucket beside the memorial to help the family defer the cost of putting their child to rest.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

Troy Abrams pauses before he speaks during a neighborhood vigil about his deceased son Brandon. The boy had been waiting on the sidewalk for an ice cream truck to arrive when he was struck.

Photo By Courtesy

Bail for 17-year-old Luis Enrique Landin was set at $100,000.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

Over 100 mourners pay respects to six-year-old Brandon Abrams during a vigil on the Northwest Side of the city.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

Members of Cub Scout Pack 352 light candles in memory of their fallen friend Brandon Abrams. The Cub Scouts were at the vigil attended by more than 100 people mourning the boy who died after big hit by a car on Autumn Sunrise.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

Candles burn at a memorial for Brandon Abrams, during a vigil attended by over 100 mourners on the Northwest Side of the city on Friday, Jan. 25, 2013.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

Briana Linstad, 7, and her 10-year-old brother, Ricky, pray at a memorial erected for Brandon Abrams on the Northwest Side of the city.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

A card of condolence is tacked on a fence at a memorial for Brandon Abrams in the Northwest Side of the city.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

Jane Withers places a candle on a memorial joined by over 100 mourners to pay respects to Brandon Abrams on the Northwest Side of the city on Friday, Jan. 25, 2013.

Photo By Kin Man Hui/San Antonio Express-News

Haylee Salas, 7, holds a candle while joining over 100 mourners to pay respects to six-year-old Brandon Abrams during a vigil on the Northwest Side of the city on Friday, Jan. 25, 2013.

Photo By Harry Thomas

9300 block of Autumn Sunrise

A day after watching a 6-year-old neighborhood boy fly through the air when he was fatally struck by a teenage driver suspected of being intoxicated, Jane Withers refused to leave the spot where the boy's mother tried in vain to save him.

Overcome by the magnitude of the tragedy that left Brandon Abrams' family grieving and a 17-year-old jailed on intoxication manslaughter charges, Withers helped set up a makeshift memorial soon after the incident at 6 p.m. Thursday in her Northwest Side neighborhood.

Brandon was waiting on the sidewalk for an ice cream truck when he was struck. According to a police report, the driver involved, Luis Enrique Landin, told officers he'd dropped a cellphone and was reaching to pick it up when he lost control of his Ford Ranger in the 9300 block of Autumn Sunrise.

Withers saw it all from her garage.

“I saw (Brandon) fly in the air and hit the ground,” she said, pausing to hold back tears. “I've never seen anyone fly through the air so much. ... He was doing the right thing, riding on the sidewalk.”

She said Landin told her he had just looked down to get his phone when he hit the boy.

As she spoke, Brandon's bright red bike lay crumpled on the grass. The impact had knocked him out of his little black shoes, marked as evidence on the roadside.

She maintained a constant vigil at the site throughout the day Friday, as friends, family and neighbors dropped off stuffed animals, candles and flowers for Brandon.

By Friday evening, about 100 mourners gathered at the site to remember the Nichols Elementary school student who had just won first place at his Cub Scout pack's Pinewood Derby.

Landin was arrested on a charge of intoxication manslaughter Thursday and bail was set at $100,000. Police said he was driving without a license.

Family friend Erica Edwards and Brandon's two big sisters answered the family's door Friday and said Brandon's mother was too devastated to talk to reporters.

“He was just a really bright light,” Edwards said. “He was really energetic. We're all really going to miss him.”

Brandon's grandfather Steve Abrams spoke angrily about the boy's admission to police that he was distracted while driving.

“That stuff has to stop. The cellphone is ridiculous, the drinking,” he said, in reference to the intoxication manslaughter charges. He questioned why a 17-year-old would be “drinking at 5 o'clock in the afternoon.”

Police said Brandon's mother was among the first on the scene and attempted CPR. Withers said the boy faded in and out of consciousness as she and others tried first aid.

Friday evening, at a vigil at the site of the crash, friends and family members spoke fondly of the boy who most said loved to smile. Members of his Cub Scout Pack 352 turned out as a unit to light candles in memory of their fallen friend.

Pictures and written words of condolences were tacked to a fence. Donations were dropped in a bucket beside the memorial to help the family defray the cost of burying the child.

Briana Linstad, 7, and her 10-year-old brother, Ricky, who live next door to the Abramses, would ride their bikes with Brandon according to their mother, Adriana Linstad.

“He was always outside on his bike,” Linstad said. “He was always climbing trees. He was a boy's boy.”

Derek Sweet, 19, said he drove to the neighborhood because Brandon's death made him think about his own little brother.

“There are people coming from all over,” Sweet said Friday afternoon.

When neighbors urged Withers, who maintained a constant vigil at the memorial she helped create, to go home to rest and eat, she declined.